Staff Views

Charles Perspective

The ERASMUS PROJECT has been a very important thing for me to have done.

I have has an opportunity to try different teaching methods and to work without necessarily having a clear line of thought or lesson plan, whilst still being able to impart knowledge and extracting serious thought and polished performances.

It has been quite refreshing to be unburdened from the strictures of lesson plans etc, as it made the experience a real pleasure to take part in with almost no points of arduousness over the week.

I was slightly concerned at the beginning of the project when I saw some of the girls who were involved in my group, as 2 were very quiet, and 2 were more exuberant! As the project moved along, the quieter students seemed to come out of their shells with more and more practical work, and became the most involved of the whole group. I think that the exploratory nature of the work (rather than being based on a script or version of a script) meant that students felt they could do no wrong, and were more likely to involve themselves in the activities/work.

In addition, one of the more confident girls became much more interested in the play generally and understood the plot as a result of what we were doing. She came up with some very interesting ideas about honour and duty, connected to Lear.

The differences in the native and non-native English speakers in terms of working as a group seemed to me to be almost completely non existent.

At first the non-native speakers seemed perhaps a little shy, but once we had established that they could speak/work in their own languages as well as English, and that we were in fact interested in learning a little about their languages and cultures, they settled into the group quickly.

Some of the girls were very perceptive in the themes of the play (for those that had actually read it), and the only thing they struggled with was the explaining of what they thought to people using a different language.

Having a performative element to this experience was valuable. It is always interesting to see how knowing that work will be performed and seen (especially by your peers) tends to sharpen the senses and give incentive to do "good work", and the whole group being able to do something "for show" that they had created felt like a truly rewarding experience. I am sure that if we were only (simply?) devising and creating, the students would have come away with many useful things (technique, group dynamics, emotional connection etc); but to have the work consolidated in a final performance gave them something that they could show to others and be proud of.

I would highly recommend this project to other teachers if ever they get the chance to be involved as working in this manner and with these people will give them a truly unique view of text and language within a familiar setting.

Gabriela's Perspective

In recent years, I participated in international projects organized to provide answers to the many questions posed by globalization, seen in its many aspects: the economical process of integration that has social and cultural aspects, the integration of national economies through trade, investment, capital flow, labor migration and technology.

A structural youth exchange project, under the title: “Youngsters of today, Europeans of tomorrow, let’s talk”, launched in Hague, on themes such as discrimination, inclusion, European integration, intra-European youth migration or media and communication.

Euroscola, a project in which students from the 28 EU member states are selected to become members of the European Parliament in Strasbourg for one day. They take the floor in plenary and committee sessions to debate and vote on resolutions on current affairs, all the while practising their language skills and making friends with fellow students from across Europe.

The European Moot Court competition for high-school students, co-organised by Justice Resource Center in New York and The Hague Municipality. It is judged a case, a hypothetical EU law problem, which is pleaded during each season’s competition and which is prepared yearly by EU law experts .

Erasmus plus project entitled Using Drama Strategies to teach English Language and European Values through Shakespeare that focuses on using drama as a teaching tool in education.

Different projects, different themes, different people...

Issues such as European integration, education, discrimination, justice, manipulation, migration, exile, longing for home, mental health, prejudices, gratitude and its lack have been always debated at the lawyers' bar, in parliaments, in classrooms, or in the classical works of literature. Temporary solutions have been offered for those problems, but they never disappear. The play is the same, only the actors playing it are different : All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances. (W. Shakespeare)

As a participant in the Erasmus plus project I played several roles: I was a teacher, a parent, a host. I 've had many emotions when my daughter, Julia, went to Denmark, as well as when Natasha, the little Danish girl returned the visit in Romania. I discovered with delight the Danish recipe of happiness, the Hygge lifestyle, and I hope that she felt good in my house, together with my family.

I met some wonderful people, The MMU staff, who taught high-school students to play as professional actors in just a few days of training.

As a teacher, I had opportunities to meet colleagues from Denmark, Greece and Turkey and exchange feedback about our classroom practice.

In England, as a teacher accompanying the students team, I also experienced various feelings: disgust before the horrors of war seen at War Museum, artistic vibration listening to the concert of The Marple Band in St. Paul's Church, the solemnity of the Remembrance Day religious service, curiosity about the sporting, charitable, educational activities of the Foundation during the visit to Manchester Stadium, the overwhelming impression in front of the Neo Gothic building housing the John Rylands library collection. And, above all, the delight of rediscovering the brilliant works of William Shakespeare and the joy of teaching it to my young students and to my own child. I have experienced the excitement of seeing the differences in how they relate to people, problems, methods to solve them and their own perspective on these issues.

Even if the whole world is a scene, Shakespeare's wisdom can teach you how to play better your role and how to exit the stage gracefully and worthily.

Gabriela Cartaleanu